If you were Meta and were worried about new competition emerging in one of your largest markets for your most popular texting app, what would you do? Come up with more features? That’s exactly what Meta seems to have done for WhatsApp, just as Zoho’s Arattai climbs its way up the ranks on Apple’s App Store in India.
Although Zoho’s Arattai app is not as feature-loaded as WhatsApp, Meta isn’t leaving its beloved texting app at the mercy of trust and loyalty. WhatsApp’s new updates focus heavily on integration with Meta’s AI capabilities. The pitch? WhatsApp promises to boost user creativity and personalisation within the chat environment.
Users can now leverage Meta AI to instantly generate customised chat themes, create AI-generated backgrounds for their video calls, and even do the same for photos and videos captured directly within a chat.
The core of the new release centers on expanding the platform’s visual and expressive tools. Chief among them is the long-awaited ability to share Live Photos from iOS and Motion Photos from Android. It also adds the ability to customise the chat experience via Meta AI features.
WhatsApp gets big AI update
Here’s a list of all the new features and updates rolled out by WhatsApp:
Live and Motion Photos support: The update now adds the ability to share Live Photos (on iOS) and Motion Photos (on Android) directly. The files will have both the sound and movement in these photos, thus allowing for a superior experience while exchanging photos with friends and family.
AI-powered chat themes: Users can now utilise Meta AI to generate fully customised chat themes based on text prompts. This is one of the ways to make the texting environment more interactive.
Custom AI backgrounds: The update also allowed the use of Meta AI to create unique, custom backgrounds for video calls, and for photos and videos taken directly inside a chat.
Document scanning on Android: This one is a big feature for students and professionals who rely on WhatsApp to share documents on the go. This new native feature allows Android users to scan, crop, save, and send documents directly from the app. Users no longer need a third-party app to scan and send documents. Note that this feature is already present on WhatsApp for iPhones.
Easier Group search: Users can now locate group chats quickly by searching for the name of any contact who is a member of that group.
New sticker packs: The update also introduces three new thematic sticker sets — Fearless Bird, School Days, and Vacation.
When can you download these WhatsApp updates?
The full rollout of these features is expected over the coming weeks in a gradual manner. While some may consider these features to be gimmicks, Meta hopes to engage more young users with these advanced AI features. This, along with the end-to-end encryption for messages and calls, gives WhatsApp a notable advantage over the homegrown Zoho Arattai app.